Key Criteria for Grade Accceleration in School

[QueenieReighn]

This reflects my experience and why I will advocate for grade acceleration for my daughters:

http://www.wku.edu/academy/?p=430

What a Child Doesn't Learn

If during the first five or six years of school, a child earns good grades and high praise without having to make much effort, what are all the things he doesn’t learn that most children learn by third grade?

Susan Assouline, co-author of A Nation Deceived: How Schools Hold Back America’s Brightest Students (2004)

Take a moment to answer this ques*tion yourself. Or have your child’s educators and administrators answer it. What isn’t learned? As you skim over your answers, you may be surprised at the sheer volume. But on closer look, you may be astounded by the depth and weight of those answers – and the impact they make on your child’s life.

 

:001_tt1: I <3 you for this link!!! It is going to my in-laws immediately! They have been bugging me to put my kids in PS "so they can have a little fun even if they don't learn anything". I feel like my husbands parent sometimes because the things on that list were the things he is now learning due to his parents caring less that he was "learning nothing" in PS. His parents lack of care for his education has turned into the biggest strain on our marriage...but don't get me wrong, I love my husband and I'm doing my best to help him along in his learning the things he should have learned long ago. But they seriously want me to damage our kids in the same way....no way! I hope this will open their eyes. :-) THANK YOU!

[Crimson Wife]

Digressing a little, but I really hate the 93-86-79 scale. It just encourages grade-grubbing, perfectionism, and going for every. single. freaking. point. Honestly I'd rather see a much more difficult exam with a far more lenient grading scale.

 

(Please note, I know you can't stop the schools from using them. I'm just whining. :) )

 

I'd never heard of it until today. DH's alma mater didn't have pluses or minuses and everything between an 80 and an 89 was a B. Mine did 80-82 as a B-, 83-86 as a B, and 87-89 as a B+. Either way, an 85 is a solid B.

[Dmmetler]

My high school used 88 as the lowest B, and 95 as the lowest A for honors track courses. Mostly it made us paranoid about grades, because if you missed even 1 on a test of less than 20 questions, you had a B, 2 and you had a C. Less than a 75, you failed. However, a lot of teachers gave ridiculous amounts of credit for homework, class participation, and everything else under the sun, which meant that, ultimately, you got whatever the teacher wanted to give you.

 

I recall at least one unit in a high school math class where I was really struggling (I have some specific visual-spacial issues that affected me big time in trig and calculus), and by MY calculations, I should have had a C for the grading period, which had me in a panic because I'd never gotten a C before. Somehow, through the alchemy of bonus points and participation points and, I suspect, simply being someone the teacher liked, I ended up with an A-.

[MinivanMom]

Hmm Our school psychologist thought that dd was not a good candidate for acceleration based on....her coloring skills. She would not color the apple all red but rather used yellow and orange with a streak of green. Sorry but they are likely brainwashed by the same shoddy prejudices that taint the college/uni degree in education. I note that you afterschool. When I actually released dd from the artificial "age=grade" shackles she completed three years in one. The school psychologist had no more education than I do, in fact, far less. I am very glad I stood by my experience, education and the knowledge that most graduates of colleges of education are in fact not at all trained or experienced in gifted issues nor gifted instruction. Even the Belin Blank center in Iowa City finally had to cave and quit pretending the system itself is not broken. Acceleration is not adequate for the gifted who are more than two standard deviations from the norm. They have dormitories for their younger students many of whom are 13 or 14 years of age. Since I have been teaching college level classes for several years, I scoff at the notion that acceleration is adequate at all. Not only are more students in need of radical acceleration but many need to skip middle school entirely along with radical acceleration in high school. You know who has the maturity issues??? Parents and children who are talented in sports, drama, music etc who cannot abide the fact that gifted intelligence is at least equally inherited as are innate musicality or athleticism. They need to grow up and get out of the way of students who leap 6 feet a year intellectually. When I meet a school psychologist who is not firmly entrenched in this mentality I will eat my shoe. I have read hundreds of reports from them in my law practice and have not found one that actually had dealt with gifted students as a part of their practice. For godsakes they are using the Weschler to identify gifted students????!! That in itself shows ineptitude. And ignorance .

 

Beautiful!

[LetsDoMath]

Our whole state has a "uniform grading policy" that also applies to homeschoolers. You want to talk f-ed up, this is it.

85 is the lowest B. 84 is a C.

 

What's really bad is that they do the GPA based on course NUMBER GRADES! (Seriously... check out the policy... you've never seen anything as dreadful.)

 

 

Being the math nerd that I am, I had to go look. I started out thinking, okay, they are just trying to combat grade inflation. I ended up thinking, wow, I didn't think my headache could get that much worse! We need an exploding head smiley!

 

Hey, how about the schools that add 3 or 5 points to the "numerical grade" for honors classes and 5 or 8 points for AP/IB/Dual? Or colleges that just recalculate GPA based on a flat 4.0 scale from the letter grades on the transcript? I have been at schools (as teacher or student) with pretty much all of the grading policies listed here, and it doesn't seem to matter. The teachers have come up with algorithms to give the students the grades they feel they should get.

[kiana]

We don't find it too grade grubbing as core basic classes - Regent's level - are easy to get 98s in. These classes are designed for gen ed, and it would be expensive to make them difficult to pass....so, by the time the testmakers set the difficulty low enough to ensure the 65 can be acheived by many of those who don't do homework, and the 85 by many of those who do, there's not much left to seperate the 95s from the 100s.

 

The problem (imo) is that if 98 is easy to achieve, it means that there's very little that can challenge a bright kid in any way, shape, or form. I'd just rather see the exams more difficult AND the grade boundaries lower, to teach kids that it's okay to not be able to solve something quickly, that there's always more you can learn, etc. But that's strictly my opinion.

[MBM]

It all depends on who you are dealing with. I'm lucky - gifted ed opportunities next door in CT, and a lot of older teachers who had taught GT over 20 years before it was dropped under the equity argument. Our psych not only understands the difference between gifted and pre-taught; she gets sensitivities and teaches the gifted how to cope in the regular classroom. You'll have to bring your shoe quickly as they are retiring all older people.

 

I do agree about the maturity issues. It gets old.

 

My son decided he didn't want to grad early. He'll be done at 16 and wants to enjoy jazz band and so forth before going away. Also with my health issues, he'd rather be home in the next few years in case I dont make it. We have been fortunate in that the teachers who used to teach gifted test him out and provide other worthwhile things for him to do. Unfortunately the equity arguments are making it harder..the jealous don't want to provide independent study any more using the public dollar, and of course there is the push for making high school core basic only.

 

:ohmy:

 

I didn't know you weren't well, Heigh Ho. I hope your health will improve. (And, FTR, I've never thought of you as a Tiger Mom. Having dealt with schools for decades myself, I understand what you're saying.)

:grouphug:

[MBM]

Thanks for the good thought MBM. I'm in good hands; only 15% chance of not making it thru my younger one's high school years. I have that personality of preparing for the worst though.

 

My younger kiddo claims I am a Tiger Mom for making him pick a sport in the middle school years and stick with it. Now he thanks me because he likes his abs. Boys crack me up. :)

 

The good news today is that the math dept decided to let the kiddo take both Geo and Alg II/Trig this year. I will only have to afterschool English lit!

 

Good news for you!

I have a son who is 13 and a big freshman this year. A scrawny freshman, actually. Shortly after school started, he began lifting weights. I think he's trying to impress a girl. :lol:

 

I am finding I don't have to do much at all this year. YAY! Well, tomorrow I've been asked to attend a free jazz concert given by some returning alum. Hey, twist my arm! The band is playing at the Chicago Jazz Fest this weekend. I love jazz so should be fun.

 

Stay well, Heigh Ho!

[Guest PickMom]

I have been dealing with trying to accelerate my son for the last year and a half. My steps have been:

1) Request to the counselor that he be tested to understand where he is at. I wanted to make sure that tests results supported he be accelerated which they did.

2) We decided to request that he be accelerated in only one subject (Math). This is his strongest subject and our hope was that he would continue to be pushed in reading as it is easier to individualize! Our school formed a committee and used the Iowa Acceleration Scale. Which I never got to see but they quoted using it.

3) I was met with much resistance and the school was not really even objective about it as this hadn't been done in our school before. After much push and not backing down they decided to give it a try this past school year. It was the BEST thing we could have ever done for him. He is a 2nd grader and went to 3rd grade for Math. He was confortable after the first day of class. The teacher was AWESOME which was a huge reason why it went well.

4) Now after seeing reading and Math test results we have decided to request he be accelerated an entire grade next school year. This wasn't the original plan but something we had even thought of prior to just doing Math. He is reading at a 5.8 grade level and Math is a 6th grade level. You would think after seeing it work so well for him they would be more open to the idea but I know already we are up for another huge fight to get it to happen.

5) The best advice I can give to you is to get the book Nation Deceived and read it. I am getting ready to supply the book to the super intendent of our schools as well as copies to the principle, Counselor and teacher. If you know you are doing the right thing don't back down!

6) I will let you know if they approve him skipping to 4th grade next year. He is more then ready and excited about the opportunity. It ended up being a great stepping stone to let him just do one grade because this year when asking him about skipping he is more then comfortable and willing to do it.

 

Good luck!